Is the intensity or force of emotions connected to a recalled (recovered) memory a legitimate basis for judging the validity of that memory? Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, an old friend of Sagan, seems to think so. He's written a book about his conversion to the side of the believers after interviewing and examining dozens of alleged abductees. For Mack, sadly, the only evidence he needs to accept these claims is the emotionality and seeming absolute conviction of his patients they have been taken aboard alien spaceships.

Sagan pulls out his baloney detector and asks, with regard to Mack, where's the scientific skepticism? Why should anyone believe the claims of so-called abductees over, say, people who have encountered witches, fairies, angels and ghosts? Sagan cites a study by Canadian psychologists that concludes alien abductees tend to be people with active fantasy lives and a tendency to interpret as real...